Google’s Street View Car Didn’t Run Over a Donkey

Google’s Street View has captured some truly insane/funny/alarming stuff, but this is the strangest of them all. You can accost the company all you want for its internal corporate motto, label it Big Brother. But an animal killer? Google says to never “ass-ume” when you only have one part of the story.

On Tuesday, the company was accused of a hit-and-run in the Kweneng region of Botswana. Only, the supposed victim was a hapless donkey, which was seen lying torpidly on a barren dirt road. The picture, when given no context, sure looks alarming. But it isn’t what you think.

Google actually posted on its blog to address the issue, saying that the donkey was merely lying in the road, and got up when the vehicle approached. You can see in the series of pictures that the donkey was lying there well before Google’s Street View car approached. When the donkey realized what was happening, it calmly got up and simply moved out of the way. Nothing to see here, guys.

So, no, Google didn’t hit a donkey while it was collecting Street View images. The donkey was already there. The donkey got up and moved. That is all.